cloud

Mates.

I remember growing up and hearing the warriors talk about their mates. I remember wishing every day that I'd eventually meet my own. Mom always said they were sacred. Gray said they were stupid and made you weak.

Looking at him now, it's surprising to see how much he changed over the years. He wasn't the same brother who ignored me or got mad when I wanted to spend time with him. Now, he was alpha, had a mate, a child of his own, and was much more annoying.

Everywhere I turned, Gray was there. He was always asking questions or scolding me. Sometimes I wished that he didn't change and just acted like I didn't exist.

"Cloud!" I hear Gray call out and roll my eyes.

What did he want this time?

Over the past few months, I had been staying with Gray and Quinn. Not by choice. When I first woke up, Gray refused to leave my side unless absolutely necessary and when the hospital finally discharged me, he refused to let me stay anywhere else but with him.

Wasn't I supposed to be the one with the trauma?

With a sigh, I get out of my bed and make my way to the door before descending the stairs. There were two available rooms in the house, one upstairs and one downstairs. Originally I had chosen the room downstairs, but after leaving multiple times in the middle of the night, Gray decided it would be better if I was upstairs and closer.

"What?" I question once I'm in the living room. I don't even bother trying to hide my annoyance. Gray knows how I feel about him.

"Where were you last night?" Gray asks with a straight face and his blue eyes meet my mismatched ones.

"I went on a walk. Is that a crime now?" I scoff.

Gray's straight face turns into a frown. "It is when it's past midnight and I don't know where you are."

My jaw clenches. "I'm not a fucking child, Gray. I don't need to tell you where I am twenty-four-seven, I'm twenty-two."

"You're a twenty-two-year-old who just returned home from a kidnapping. You can't shift and you can't access the pack link. What would you do if rogues were in the area?" Gray raises an eyebrow.

I roll my eyes and shrug my shoulders. Truthfully, it didn't matter to me whether or not I lived or died. But if I told Gray that, he'd never let me leave this house again.

"I came back in one piece, didn't I?"

Gray sighs. "You got lucky this time. Don't do it again. You shouldn't be putting yourself in unnecessary situations like that, you should be focusing on getting better and deciding what you want to do in the future."

I scowl at Gray and turn to leave. The old Gray would've just told me that if I die then it was my fault and forget about my existence. The new Gray was such a dad and I didn't like it.

As I walk back up the stairs and turn towards my room, I nearly run into a small figure. Looking down, I see Gray and Quinn's crotch goblin staring at me with big blue eyes. They were similar to Gray's but held more warmth and curiosity within.

Crazy to think that one day she'll take over as alpha after Gray.

It was crazy for me to even wrap my head around the fact that Gray was the alpha of the pack when I came back. It shouldn't have been surprising considering his age, but knowing that he was eighteen when he took over was what shocked me.

I knew for a fact that Dad wouldn't have willingly given up control at such an early age. I later found out that Dad had died shortly before Gray's eighteenth birthday. Eighteen was the age that a wolf was able to officially take its place within the pack. So once Gray had turned eighteen, he had to step up. Mom and Beta Cyrus had been helping until his birthday.

It was because of this, Beta Cyrus and Gamma Marshall also stepped down early. They figured that it would be better if Gray had people closer to his age who he could trust and they believed that both Gaius and Foster were more than ready.

"Hi, Uncle," the crotch goblin says before she quickly moves past me.

I watch amusedly as she moves down the stairs. In the short time that I had been here, I've noticed that every time I was in the same room as her, she quickly leaves. Quinn says Layne's just shy, but it was clear the four-year-old was afraid of me.

Once I'm back in my room, I walk towards the window and stare at it. The temptation to open it and leave quickly kicks in, but I fight the urge to do so and instead I move towards the bed and lay down on it with a sigh.

I should feel happy that I was back in the pack where I grew up and not in that fucking lab anymore, but being back wasn't much better. Being back in the pack and seeing all the familiar faces of people I had grown up with brought up memories. Memories that I had tried so hard to erase from my mind.

At least at the lab, I was usually drugged and didn't have a chance to let my thoughts run wild. But at home, nothing was stopping those thoughts from flooding my mind and in some ways, that was worse than anything the lab had done to me.